Mouse Thyroid Gland Changes in Aging: Implication of Galectin-3 and Sphingomyelinase

Figure 1

Thyroid morphology in aging. The analysis was performed with hematoxylin-eosin staining. Although some thyroid follicles of old animals appear wider than those of young mouse thyroid, the size of the follicles is not at all homogeneous. The morphometric analysis was performed by using ImageFocus software. Data are reported as mean ± S.D. of three independent experiments performed in duplicate. The results are not statistically significant, as reported in the results. Notably, the structure of thyrocytes and interfollicular spaces appears different in young and old thyroid mice. In particular, thyrocytes are less tall (red arrows) and interfollicular spaces are smaller (black arrows) in old than in young animals. 40x magnification.